Welcome To The Hermit's Desk

I want to write...reflection. I want to take the last year and layer it over the last 36 years, to make some kind of collage with the cut-up bits, the glue that is 20 years of writing already behind me. It's much harder done than said, however, and I find myself staring a blank screen, not knowing what to put down. At least, not knowing what to put down that wouldn't be basic rambling.

I need to start writing again, even if it is just rambling. Reintroduce myself to the thing that I have always done, regardless of where the mental state was. I always wrote, even in the good times. Times are good now, but I'm not writing.

I think I got used to the emotions literally spilling themselves onto the page. No effort was required. These days, nothing leaps out. The landscape is stabilized. Effort is now required. I need not shy away from that.

Besides, it's journaling. It's not like it has to be brilliant writing. I can sit here and stream-of-conscience my way through it all if I want. I wonder why that's so hard these days. I suppose it's because as the emotions have slowed down, so have the thoughts. The intensity isn't there right now.

But writers WRITE. It is the sole requirement to be a writer - that we write. Even if we do what I am doing here - writing about writing. (It's a classic trick that shows we are all out of ideas.)

But god, I do miss it. I miss crafting words, feeling my own power come alive. I miss being creative, editing and re-editing in order to find just that right word, yes THAT RIGHT WORD. I miss applying myself in a way that I know I'm good at.

And the ability to just talk. To hear my own voice. To put my voice out there and see what other voices say back. I miss that, too. I've always written more than I've talked. The last few months has been the first time in my entire life that the converse has instead been true. I don't want to give up my physical words for written ones, but there is a hole where the written words used to go. Its depth both mocks and calls to me.

It's okay to write about having nothing to write about. It's okay to do that over and over, if that's what it takes. I know the process of writing and I know, eventually, the practice will kick in again. The words will come. I just need to be here, on the page, opening up space and dialogue for when they come back.

If that's what it takes, then I will gladly fill entry after entry with nothing more than reiterations of the phrase "I have nothing to write about."

If the feelings have sorted themselves out to the point of coherence and sensible progression - which is a miracle, really, given everything you've fought through - then that leaves what you do and what you think.

You have a pretty active mind. If you dare, ask yourself "what if?" every once in a while. Or do something you haven't done before - cook something new, read a new book, spend time in a place you don't ordinarily go, hold a conversation with someone you wouldn't normally talk to.

From there, let the rest follow as it will.

...And take a look at what I posted on Facebook at 12:23 CST yesterday (Thursday) morning. You might find it as relatable as I did, and it might have bearing on this matter.

Writer's block may appear here and there, as life itself keeps changing as well as the personality keeps changing which writes. Somtimes one slips into times where one doesn't want to talk about what's going on in one's life or in one's inside, as the truth either could be too complicated to depict for oneself even or for whatever reason that you don't like to talk otherwise. Phases lke that happen, phases like that also may leave again. It strongly depends on if you get anything again which seems worth the talking for you.